One of the hardest and deepest questions in philosophy IMO. I tend to straddle the line. I think that some of our perception is grounded in what we could call an objective, external reality. i.e.There is a coffee cup filled with coffee sitting next to me. Based on how we define those words (and assuming no radical skepticism), my seeing the coffee cup with coffee is an accurate perception of the proximity of a certain object to my body. That's our perception, and it accords with what we take to be reality.Eaglerising wrote:Is our perception our reality? Or, is reality something different from perception?
I ask these questions because I was wondering if our perception prevents us from accurately seeing “what is?” If it does, then everyone’s view of “what is” would be different, unique. And if everyone’s perception is different, does it prevent us from understanding one another?
Then things get murkier. Is the coffee cup a real solid object, or is it nothing but a collection of molecules bouncing around that we can't perceive through the senses. For my part, I think reality and perception DO match up here. It is correct to ay that there is a solid object filled with coffee sitting next to me. It's also correct that reality differs from my perception on the level of physics.
So I guess my final answer is that perception *can* lead us to have a partial grasp on reality as it is. But this grasp is only partial, and the real truths of the world go way beyond what we directly perceive via our senses.
Hope that helps!